He remembers December

Brad Brownell is one competitive dude, and it doesn't take long to gather that when you're around him.

He went on rants after March losses to Duke and North Carolina, and I tend to believe that both tirades didn't reflect calculated advancement of agenda as much as basic anger in the immediate aftermath of losses.

The man just hates losing. Some people would say a hatred of losing doesn't differentiate Brownell from most of his colleagues in a high-stakes, cut-throat business, but the belief here is that his hatred is in an exceptional category.

Just take yesterday. As he sat down to reflect on a season that must be characterized as a remarkable success, he was still brooding about a result that occurred on Dec. 12.

That's when Clemson traveled to Florida State for its ACC opener. The Tigers had lost back-to-back games to Michigan and South Carolina, and not many people envisioned them being capable of generating enough offense to leave Tallahassee with a win.

The common belief, in fact, was that the Tigers would have a hard time staying close enough to have a shot to win at the end. Yet Brownell's team was up six at halftime and had plenty of chances before falling 75-69.

That period of time seems like a long time ago. There simply was not a lot of hope of this team doing anything special this season. I remember telling the message board to buckle up for a long ride, that things would probably get worse before they got better. Back then, you could ask the question "will this team win three ACC games?" and few people would look at you funny.

The evolution and trajectory from December to January-February-March is the best illustrator of Brownell's success this season. The 20-plus wins, the fourth-place ACC finish, the NCAA Tournament appearance all sound good. But to get the full measure of just how remarkable a season this was, all you have to do is rewind to December and recall some of the problems that were befalling this team.

Brownell said his personal low point of this season was that loss in Tallahassee. I had a sit-down interview with him a few days later, and it was pretty clear he was down in the dumps. And it went beyond the fact that he was about to lose Demontez Stitt for a stretch because of minor knee surgery.

Brownell just didn't believe his players were fully invested in what we was teaching. He didn't think they possessed the mental fortitude and fight to finish off a game on the road.

The Tigers were up at halftime in that game, but Brownell didn't see much fire in his players' eyes as they trotted out of the locker room. So he trotted them right back in and delivered a stern message that didn't resonate -- at least, not enough.

"I don't think the guys realized the opportunity that was in front of them," Brownell was saying yesterday. "We had ourselves in great position for a road win in the ACC, and we didn't play that way. ... It was unbelievably frustrating for me."

As Brownell looks back on the season, that loss ended up being tremendously costly in his eyes. If the Tigers pull that game out, maybe they don't have to go to Dayton and fight for the right to be a 12 seed. Maybe they end up advancing to the Round of 32 if they don't have to deal with the crap schedule imposed by the NCAA.

I don't necessarily view that FSU defeat in the same light. If the Tigers do pull that game out, everything that happens thereafter doesn't necessarily remain static. With a win in Tallahassee, maybe they don't have the same level of hunger and determination we saw when they went down to the Lowcountry and pulled out a close and important win over College of Charleston 10 days after the Florida State defeat.

The feeling here is that the final numbers for Brownell's first season ended up being about right, even if the NCAA Tournament seeding and schedule might've been a raw deal.

But it has to be comforting to Clemson fans to know that Brownell hates losing so much that he's still grousing about a loss that happened in December.

It's part of what makes him a good coach -- and maybe even a great one.

LW